The ProJared drama

[Ev1l0rd]

While I am still hazy on how useful a twitter block is

It's the equivalent of taking the ball and going home. It does jack shit from stopping someone from viewing the tweets you make. It literally only stops you from responding to them.

That aside, I think a more important thing to stress on aside from the breakup (I honestly couldn't quite care in the slightest about the breakup although it's easy to dunk ProJared on) is the fact that, no matter on if he sollicited from minors or not, he did abuse his position as a creator to sollicit nudes from fans, which in my eyes is no matter what, inexcusable, and if he did sollicit nudes from minors, he can go to jail as a pedophile.

On another note, maybe watch some of ScottTheWoz's videos, I heard he makes good content.

 

[Ericthegreat]

So, because we had one for JonTron, when that all went down...

Why not have a centralized topic for the Projared thing? I'd like to see everyone's take on it.

For those that haven't been on Twitter, or are out of the loop on the subject:

ProJared is an internet/YouTube personality, who has been doing videos for a good few years now. He's someone with over 1 million subs, and is part of NormalBoots, aka the group of YouTubers that include PBGamer, at one point JonTron, and others. He's good friends with the GameGrumps crew as well, being in a good few of their videos as a guest before.

He's also been married for a while, to his wife, Heidi O'Ferrall, a fairly popular cosplayer and artist.

And as of last night, ProJared announced that he would be getting a divorce from her.
https://twitter.com/ProJared/status/1126332309567942656

In a rather unexpected chain of events, Heidi then took to Twitter as well, to fire back at Jared's statement.

https://twitter.com/AtelierHeidi/status/1126339321152204801
https://twitter.com/AtelierHeidi/status/1126346752624173056

According to the wife, Jared had cheated on her with former GameGrumps "Steam Train" host Ross O'Donovan's ex-wife Holly Conrad. Allegedly, he also had been sending explicit pictures to fans, which apparently are circulating the internet, and are completely not allowed to be posted here.

PeanutButterGamer also decided to join the fray, with a handful of some now deleted Tweets, decrying Heidi's comments as slander, and that she should not have posted anything about the reasoning behind the divorce publicly.

Most of the replies from PBG ended up deleted overnight, after backlash, though some remain.

https://twitter.com/PeanutButterGmr/status/1126392401562439683
https://twitter.com/PeanutButterGmr/status/1126347772196581376
https://twitter.com/AtelierHeidi/status/1126380772116447232

GameGrumps has also removed all videos involving Jared from their channel.

Which, pretty much summarizes it all up.

You can see some definite fan backlash, as he's lost at least 40k subs, dropping below his once over 1 million sub mark https://www.subscribercount.org/dmjared

What do you make of it all?

Why do people care about this at all? People get divorced all the time?

 

[FAST6191]

he did abuse his position as a creator to sollicit nudes from fans, which in my eyes is no matter what, inexcusable

Is content creator akin to teacher, carer, social worker, police officer, prison guard... these days?

 

[notimp]

Ne, this works as follows.

People want a leader figure. Think president of a small state. They tend to group together and pronounce someone they like the leader in something. Lets say, best twit channel.

If that person becomes somewhat successful (movement gets traction), they become very emotionally involved. They - as a mass, give them power, and in return they get something like "collective meaning/mattering" out of it, which oddly they enjoy in a very individual feeling/perceiving kind of way.

If that crumbles (movement diminishing, or not mattering at all) they get very worried, and come up with individual solutions. Because they are so involved. Most often they are just "if only our values would be kept solid, we would venture through it all - *religious smile* (*jk* )".

And again this is how societies work.

From a marketing point of view, you just produce someone that seems mildly succesfull at what they are doing, and very aspirational, then people start to congregate around them, and make them exactly that.

What they get out of it is feels. A "their success is my success" kind of thing.

Watched a documentary on upcoming japanese and korean idols and their support groups once. Its the exact same thing - perfectly encapsulated.


If thats too erratic for you, sorry. I sometimes provoke, because I like to.

(People following online personas for "values" is - cringeworthy for me. I mean, you probably will never meet them in real life, or without paying (fanfests ). Again, idol culture has perfectly sculpted that part too. (Meet and greets. Handshaking events.))

 

[DeadlyFoez]

This shit should all stay private. It really should not be our business. Out of respect, everyone should ignore it all and not feed it anymore. This is a shameful situation that is hurting out lots of people. All those involved are not thinking correctly.

 

[FAST6191]

If that was for me I am familiar with the psychology of hero worship, celebrity worship and for the more general term then parasocial interactions, and while I have evidence of their existence and can replicate it well enough also find it utterly bizarre to even contemplate myself facing.

 

[notimp]

But then to an extent this is all kind of normal. I first thought about those concepts, in connection to what a speechwriters job for a political figure is.

But now everyone is kind of experiencing it through the youtuber/twitch streamer culture. Where people almost start addressing crowds "naturally" (they are just imitating what works).

Thats at least a different viewpoint. Which is all that I intended to show with the text.

 

[Enryx25]

Why do people care about this at all? People get divorced all the time?

Because he asked nudes from his underage fans.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Is content creator akin to teacher, carer, social worker, police officer, prison guard... these days?

With the way YouTube has engrained itself into the modern day lives of kids, yes, most certainly. (although I wouldn't quite put prison guard on that list, most youths aren't delinquents )

People like ProJared are what kids spend their time watching (well, hopefully not anymore with this stuff) and as a result will shape their worldview of things in the future. This is both good and bad. On the good end, you have channels that work as great educational tools, providing what some schools or parents refuse to teach (...usually due to religious reasons).

The bad part is that compared to the equivalent from before the internet (I'd compare it with actors and movie directors myself), there is a whole lot more direct involvement between a content creator and their audience. As a content creator (not one myself, but I've seen enough of these YouTube carreers), there is a constant spotlight on them and their personal life, which means fans of these creators have an unprecedented ability to look in their personal life, and as a result they often end up with a near cult following.

This being one of the few exceptions, where it appears the creators own fanbase has turned against them, but usually criticism of these creators tends to be met with... vicarious defending to say the least. (To minorly cite from personal stuff: I criticized GradeAUnderA for using anti-semitic imagery when talking about greed in one of his videos on Twitter and got a minor horde of fans of his breathing down my neck calling me "anti-fun"). This can easily lead to some of them getting the idea that they can do and say whatever they want, with no social repercussions attached to it because their fans will validate them anyway.

Compare and contrast this with actors and movie directors, whose personal lives to this day are mostly kept aside and usually are the subject of the backpage magazines spreading gossip about them.

This is why I'm also so highly critical of when YouTube permits awful behavior to stay on it's own platform. You and I may have the proper moral judgements to condemn bad behavior, but the average viewer and participant of YouTube is somewhere around 10-12 and can easily be influenced by people with bad intent.

 

[Ericthegreat]

Because he asked nudes from his underage fans.

Ooooo
Edit: re read, where does it say this?

 

[supersonicwaffle]

With the way YouTube has engrained itself into the modern day lives of kids, yes, most certainly. (although I wouldn't quite put prison guard on that list, most youths aren't delinquents )

There's a difference if his fans in the case are underage kids or a consenting adult. Compared to other cases like Mick Jagger or Wilt Chamberlain (claimed to have sleept with 20,000+ women), soliciting nudes from adults as a YouTuber seems quite tame to me.

I don't want to make the case that what Jagger or Chamerlain did is wrong either. People are attracted to popular figures, this is nothing new.

This seems relevant:

 

[Ev1l0rd]

There's a difference if his fans in the case are underage kids or a consenting adult. Compared to other cases like Mick Jagger or Wilt Chamberlain (claimed to have sleept with 20,000+ women), soliciting nudes from adults as a YouTuber seems quite tame to me.

I don't want to make the case that what Jagger or Chamerlain did is wrong either. People are attracted to popular figures, this is nothing new.

I was just answering Fasts question on if content creators take a similar role to what parental/educating figures take to children these days.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Ooooo
Edit: re read, where does it say this?

See page 2, there's a couple of tweets about it there.

 

[supersonicwaffle]

I was just answering Fasts question on if content creators take a similar role to what parental/educating figures take to children these days.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


See page 2, there's a couple of tweets about it there.

All good. You're specifically mentioning kids though, soliciting child pornography will always be wrong irregardless of role, so that's kinda moot. I fail to see how a guy on YouTube is different from a guy on PBS, Nickelodon, MTV or whatever in that regard.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

All good. You're specifically mentioning kids though, soliciting child pornography will always be wrong irregardless of role, so that's kinda moot. I fail to see how a guy on YouTube is different from a guy on PBS, Nickelodon, MTV or whatever in that regard.

It's mostly because kids are easily influenced by adults, and with the ease of access YouTube and modern social media offers for creators to interact with their fanbase, the potential for abuse is much greater, particularly with the personality cults that spring up around them that make the risk of someone feeling socially pressured into doing this stuff much greater as well as the ability for creators to get away with it thanks to the people who defend them no matter what.

(I'd like to stress that for the most part, I am not against content creators and the ease of access they have to interact with their fanbase, it's more that the risk involved if someone does misbehave for example by solliciting CP in this case, there is a real chance that whatever stuff they pull gets excused by them.)

 

[FAST6191]

With the way YouTube has engrained itself into the modern day lives of kids, yes, most certainly. (although I wouldn't quite put prison guard on that list, most youths aren't delinquents )

People like ProJared are what kids spend their time watching (well, hopefully not anymore with this stuff) and as a result will shape their worldview of things in the future. This is both good and bad. On the good end, you have channels that work as great educational tools, providing what some schools or parents refuse to teach (...usually due to religious reasons).

The bad part is that compared to the equivalent from before the internet (I'd compare it with actors and movie directors myself), there is a whole lot more direct involvement between a content creator and their audience. As a content creator (not one myself, but I've seen enough of these YouTube carreers), there is a constant spotlight on them and their personal life, which means fans of these creators have an unprecedented ability to look in their personal life, and as a result they often end up with a near cult following.

This being one of the few exceptions, where it appears the creators own fanbase has turned against them, but usually criticism of these creators tends to be met with... vicarious defending to say the least. (To minorly cite from personal stuff: I criticized GradeAUnderA for using anti-semitic imagery when talking about greed in one of his videos on Twitter and got a minor horde of fans of his breathing down my neck calling me "anti-fun"). This can easily lead to some of them getting the idea that they can do and say whatever they want, with no social repercussions attached to it because their fans will validate them anyway.

Compare and contrast this with actors and movie directors, whose personal lives to this day are mostly kept aside and usually are the subject of the backpage magazines spreading gossip about them.

This is why I'm also so highly critical of when YouTube permits awful behavior to stay on it's own platform. You and I may have the proper moral judgements to condemn bad behavior, but the average viewer and participant of YouTube is somewhere around 10-12 and can easily be influenced by people with bad intent.

Maybe for some but there are always those that are fucked in the head and doing the risk-reward analysis for that one I find it wanting, and handily sorted with "parent your bloody kids then**" just like was said for games, comics, rock n roll, jazz, telephones and whatever other scary things of such unsurpassed realism were getting the chattering classes abother. Much like the other person that quoted you I would not note it as a new phenomenon either -- between fan clubs, said gossip rags and general groupie behaviours... decades might even be too short a time frame*.

As far as making any kind of legal sanction or note no, and I would probably find it dubious for it to be accounted for in some kind of sentencing

*Franz Liszt probably being a nice example from the 30s, the 1830s that is.


** https://www.youtube.com/t/terms

2.3 You may not use the Service and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with YouTube,

That might vary between countries but usually falls in line with age of criminal responsibility, above the ages you mentioned.

 

[supersonicwaffle]

It's mostly because kids are easily influenced by adults, and with the ease of access YouTube and modern social media offers for creators to interact with their fanbase, the potential for abuse is much greater, particularly with the personality cults that spring up around them that make the risk of someone feeling socially pressured into doing this stuff much greater as well as the ability for creators to get away with it thanks to the people who defend them no matter what.

(I'd like to stress that for the most part, I am not against content creators and the ease of access they have to interact with their fanbase, it's more that the risk involved if someone does misbehave for example by solliciting CP in this case, there is a real chance that whatever stuff they pull gets excused by them.)

It offers the same ease of access for everyone, including Mick Jagger, it's not something that's specific to YouTube creators. It's exactly the same issue as celebrities hooking up with fans, which I'm not sure is something I would consider wrong.

 

[DinohScene]

I kinda agree with the people that don't care about it.

I have no clue who jontron and projared are, I don't watch gamegrumps.
It's nothing different from telly celebs, just a cry for attention.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Maybe for some but there are always those that are fucked in the head and doing the risk-reward analysis for that one I find it wanting, and handily sorted with "parent your bloody kids then**" just like was said for games, comics, rock n roll, jazz, telephones and whatever other scary things of such unsurpassed realism were getting the chattering classes abother. Much like the other person that quoted you I would not note it as a new phenomenon either -- between fan clubs, said gossip rags and general groupie behaviours... decades might even be too short a time frame*.

"parent your bloody kids then" is a nice argument on paper, but as I'm sure you'll be familiar with to some degree, parents just don't do that if it's so much easier to shove the kid behind a technological product of choice. Sadly there is a disproportionate amount of parents that would rather put little Timmy behind a tablet watching YouTube than actually invest time to properly raise him and make him grow up, without taking much into regard as to what exactly little Timmy is learning from what he's seeing online, and as a result, little Timmy has thanks to Youtube's algorithm[1], grown up to be an alt-right idiot.

Of course, cultie behavior surrounding fans isn't anything new. I'm more noting that the central focus of these groups is just as much a participant in these groups, which is what makes modern day content creators different.

Fanclubs and Gossip mags often don't have a direct connection or ability to interact with the person they support/talk about (paparazzi reporting comes to mind), and often are merely based around the "idealized version" of the person or group (aka that which they believe the person to be) and in the case of Fanclubs support them, and with Gossip mags, take them down a notch.

I am by no means against content creators having this ease of ability to interact, in a lot of cases it's a good thing. In some cases though... it really isn't.

As far as making any kind of legal sanction or note no, and I would probably find it dubious for it to be accounted for in some kind of sentencing

Not saying there should be legal sanctions based on that stuff (that gets awfully close to "government determines what you can and cannot say"), but I feel at the least we should be holding platforms like YouTube, whose autoplay functions are practically designed to shove pseudo-scientific idiots/alt-righties/pick your awful poison of choice in the face of it's viewers[1] responsible to some degree for the things they pull. If not legally, at least there should be put social pressure on both YouTube and the creators it actively pushes on it's platform to stop doing that.

[1]: YouTubes algorithm is designed to specifically pick up on 10 minute videos (best viewer retention time) that are produced very frequently (iirc the ideal method is at least 3 videos a week). Pseudoscience/fake news requires little more than a slightly creative mind and the ability to find one or two articles that support your viewpoint, something which the internet already makes easy enough. On the contrary (for example), a video picking apart something like this has to research all of it's points, which takes much longer to make (this method of spreading pseudo-science and fake news is known as the Gish Gallop).

 

[kumikochan]

Well most comments i saw on this post is '' I don't care that he is a cheating pedophile as long as he makes good content''. You should all be very proud of yourselves

 

[FAST6191]

I can happily file that under "not my problem, give or take me having to interact with the results one day but much the same as we can't ban religion despite how sweet the end results would be then not much I can reasonably do here other than grin and bear it".

If a government wants to issue guidance for parents, education for the young ones and parents, do a bit of issue awareness then carry on*

*I dread to think what the current and all past govs since the internet became a thing would do here but... call me an optimist.

I would similarly not denounce the overall effects/potential of the combination of fan clubs, groupies and gossip rags. Social meeja has streamlined it all a bit but functional results, over which laws have been passed for less,... nah.

As far as alt right I don't seem them as anything particularly worth fearing and likely to rise to notable prominence any time soon.

Edit

Well most comments i saw on this post is '' I don't care that he is a cheating pedophile as long as he makes good content''. You should all be very proud of yourselves

Oh? Please point those out. I have kept up with this thread as replies come in, can see edit histories and have seen none of that.